We’ve had some good news and bad news this past week on the injury front. The good news was the desperate return of Kris Russell on the back-end. I don’t need to tell you how much of a garbage-fire our defence has looked the last few weeks, so any help we can get is fantastic.. The bad news? We lost ANOTHER defenceman to injury. Let’s break it down:

Kailer Yamamoto

Kailer Yamamoto has been out with an upper-body injury since the beginning of the year and all the hype was leaning towards him returning to the lineup last night against Arizona. This obviously never happened and he still remains on the IR. With the extreme lack of depth scoring in our lineup right now, hopefully Yamamoto will come back asap and create some sort of spark in that group that we haven’t been seeing. With him not playing last night, I would hopefully expect him in the lineup tomorrow night.

Alexander Petrovic

Alex Petrovic is currently out day-to-day with concussion-like symptoms after getting hit into the boards from behind by Timo Meier earlier last week against the Sharks. You can watch the video of the hit below. Petrovic clearly hits his head against the glass fairly hard, and left the game immediately. Let me be the first to say that after having a rough couple of games shortly after being traded to a new team, Petrovic is not having a good time right now following up his poor play with an injury.

Concussion injuries can be tricky in terms of a timeline. He is listed as day-to-day, however it wouldn’t be the first time a day-to-day injury stretches out to month-to-month. Let’s hope the trainers take good care of Petrovic and he does what is necessary to heal up properly without risking anything.

Oscar Klefbom

Oscar Klefbom is still a few weeks out from returning to the lineup after having surgery on a broken finger. Have I mentioned that we’re in desperate need of Klefbom to return and I miss him very very much? After watching the team over the last month, it’s more obvious than ever that Klefbom is a crucial part of our defence core.

In a press conference on Friday, Ken Hitchcock said that Klefbom is meeting with a doctor this weekend to get the green light for his pins to come out. If this is the case, Klefbom should be back on the ice with the team this week skating. Isn’t that exciting? A timeline for his actual return is still immediately following the All-Star break. It sounds like if the Oilers rushed him hard enough he could probably be available before then, but it seems unanimous by everybody that this isn’t a good idea.

Andrej Sekera

There has been no update on Reggie’s status in the last week, and the last we heard was that he’s getting closer to a return from his Achilles tear. It’s been said before that Sekera will be heading down to Bakersfield for a conditioning stint when he’s ready to play. This will obviously extend the time before we see him in an Oilers uniform, but it’s safe to say the guy is going to be a little rusty having not played any games this season. Andrej Sekera has been skating with the team for a while now, however there’s still no specific timeline of when we can see him in game action. I refuse to get my hopes up.

17 Comments |

As an Oiler fan it frustrates me to no end to hear people cry about officiating, I mean seriously is that why we are losing as many as we are winning. Its the officials fault? Watch the game man, theres no way you could have missed Mcdavids high stick on Arizona, just quit whining. True fans don’t cry when there team loses fair and square. Grow a pair and grow up.

A hit from behind into the boards is not as dangerous as a high stick. It’s the most dangerous play in hockey, and it’s happened twice in the last week. McDavid was hit directly in front of the official and nothing was called.

No one is complaining about the hits from behind because they think it costs the team wins.

Yes we certainly have developed a culture of losing and that is extremely tough to break out of but it didn’t help things when Chia continued to purge this team after a 47 win season to the point where we are back to being a mediocre team. That’s on him ! #fireChia

You wouldn’t say that if you lived in Boston, Toronto, San Jose, Tampa Bay, Winnepeg, Calgary, Nashville, Washington, Vegas. Pittsburgh, Columbus, NYI. Dallas, Buffalo or Montreal. Suck it up, we have had 4 first overalls in 10 years and still cant win. News flash, its not the officials or a watered down league. Its us.

Not a popular idea but the 2019 first round pick gotta be in play for scoring depth now doesn’t it? Pathetic shot counts and zero scoring depth. If McDavid gets an elite winger on the level of Tarasenko it could mean career highs for both. There’ll be more than one team willing to take a bad contract with that pick too. Not Lucic’s anchor of a contract but definitely Manning’s 2.25 or Spooner’s 3.1million could go with the pick.

The little bit of cap space the Oilers have will disappear the moment Sekera is activated. Tarasenko’s cap hit is $7.5 million. Even if the Oilers were willing to trade the pick, and if the Blues agreed to trade him for Spooner and our 1st, we would still be $4.4 million short of fitting him in. Pete has snookered us.

This team plays with zero heart and questionable leadership. Good leaders don’t allow their teammate float around and not give decent effort. The only reason the players worked when Hitch was hired was they were afraid of being benched or sent to the minors. Now they are complacent knowing that the team has no leaders to be afraid of, a weak farm system, won’t trade them or thinks that they will magically start showing heart, so why try.